A STORY FROM THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR Capt. Jonatan [Jonathan] Hopper,
(Albert, Jan, Hendrick, Andries) Children: Albert,
Born at Paramus, New Jersey Jonatan is mentioned in the will of his father as deceased, and gives 100 pounds to his son Albert. The will is dated March 8, 1793. In 1779 Jonatan Hopper was operating a grist and saw mill at Wagaraw. On the night of April 21, 1779, his wife was aroused by a noise as if someone was trying to get into the lower part of the mill, where for better security he kept his horses. "Yawntan!" said she in Dutch. "Somebody is stealing your horses!" Lighting a lantern, he threw open the upper half door and challenged the marauders. Instantly a shot was fired through the lower half of the door, wounding him in the abdomen. He staggered back into the house and fell upon a bed, covering himself up in the blankets.. A party of Tories, masked and disguised, rushed in and compelling his young wife to hold a candle, they savagely attacked the prostrate form. Once he seized one of the bayonets, and holding it for a moment, cried to his assailant: "Andries, this is an old grudge!" With redoubled fury, the inhuman savages repeatedly bayoneted him, until with a groan, he expired. His two infant children, who were wont to sleep in a trundle bed beneath him, were horrified spectators of their father's massacre. After the murderers were gone, his wife and a neighbor took the blood out of the bed in double handfuls. The murdered man had received 19 or 20 bayonet thrusts. It is believed that some neighbor had led the Tories to the attack. Hopper was a captain in the Bergen County Militia and was connected with a garrison at Hoppertown. A letter in the New Jersey Gazette of May 12, 1779, describing the murder speaks of Captain Jonathan Hopper as "a brave and spirited officer of the Militia of Bergen County." It adds that one of his neighbors, Stephen Rider, had formerly been one of his neighbors [sic]. He served under Col. Theunis Dey's Regiment, Bergen County Militia. It is said that Jonathan's children removed to Cincinnati, Ohio. *********************************************** *********************************************** About four years after the murder, Jonathan HOPPER's widow Margaret married Jonathan's second cousin Garret HOPPER. Garret and Margaret raised a large family of their own.
|
